A Two-Stage Online Approach for Collaborative Multi-Agent Planning under Uncertainty

In a team of multiple agents, the pursuance of a common goal is a defining characteristic. Since agents may have different capabilities, and effects of actions may be uncertain, a common goal can generally only be achieved through a careful cooperation between the different agents. In this work, we propose a novel two-stage planner that combines online planning at both team level and individual level through a subgoal delegation scheme. The proposal brings the advantages of online planning approaches to the multi-agent setting. A number of modifications are made to a classical UCT approximate algorithm to (i) adapt it to the application domains considered, (ii) reduce the branching factor in the underlying search process, and (iii) effectively manage uncertain information of action effects by using information fusion mechanisms. The proposed online multi-agent planner reduces the cost of planning and decreases the temporal cost of reaching a goal, while significantly increasing the chance of success of achieving the common goal. 

Informal strategies of power in the local planning system

Existing studies that question the role of planning as a state institution, whose interests it serves together with those disputing the merits of collaborative planning are all essentially concerned with the broader issue of power in society. Although there have been various attempts to highlight the distorting effects of power, the research emphasis to date has been focused on the operation of power within the formal structures that constitute the planning system. As a result, relatively little attention has been attributed to the informal strategies or tactics that can be utilised by powerful actors to further their own interests. This article seeks to address this gap by identifying the informal strategies used by the holders of power to bypass the formal structures of the planning system and highlight how these procedures are to a large extent systematic and (almost) institutionalised in a shadow planning system. The methodology consists of a series of semi-structured qualitative interviews with 20 urban planners working across four planning authorities within the Greater Dublin Area, Ireland. Empirical findings are offered that highlight the importance of economic power in the emergence of what essentially constitutes a shadow planning system. More broadly, the findings suggest that much more cognisance of the structural relations that govern how power is distributed in society is required and that ‘light touch’ approaches that focus exclusively on participation and deliberation need to be replaced with more radical solutions that look towards the redistribution of economic power between stakeholders.

A Collaborative Multiagent Framework based on Online Risk-Aware Planning and Decision-Making

Planning is an essential process in teams of multiple agents pursuing a common goal. When the effects of actions undertaken by agents are uncertain, evaluating the potential risk of such actions alongside their utility might lead to more rational decisions upon planning. This challenge has been recently tackled for single agent settings, yet domains with multiple agents that present diverse viewpoints towards risk still necessitate comprehensive decision making mechanisms that balance the utility and risk of actions. In this work, we propose a novel collaborative multi-agent planning framework that integrates (i) a team-level online planner under uncertainty that extends the classical UCT approximate algorithm, and (ii) a preference modeling and multicriteria group decision making approach that allows agents to find accepted and rational solutions for planning problems, predicated on the attitude each agent adopts towards risk. When utilised in risk-pervaded scenarios, the proposed framework can reduce the cost of reaching the common goal sought and increase effectiveness, before making collective decisions by appropriately balancing risk and utility of actions. 

From brown envelopes to community benefits: the co-option of planning gain agreements under deepening neoliberalism

The provision of physical and social infrastructure in the form of roads, green spaces and community facilities has traditionally been provided for by the state through the general taxation system. However, as the state has been transformed along more neoliberal lines, the private sector is increasingly relied upon to deliver public goods and services. Planning gain agreements have flourished within this context by offering another vehicle through which local facilities are privately funded. Whilst these agreements reflect the broader dynamics of neoliberalism, they are commonly viewed as a tool which can be employed to challenge these very dynamics by empowering local communities to secure more just planning outcomes. This paper counters such claims. Based on evidence gathered from 80 interviews with planners, councillors, developers and community groups in Ireland, the paper demonstrates how planning gain agreements have been strategically redeployed by the holders of political and economic power to serve their own ends. In seeking to understand why and how this has occurred, specific consideration is given to the changing power dynamics between the state and private capital under neoliberalism. The paper highlights how institutional arrangements have enabled developers to infiltrate the political sphere in more subtle and implicit ways than ever before. We conclude by arguing that planning gain must be understood as a mechanism which has been manipulated in ways which essentially work to preserve and enhance, rather than redress, existing power imbalances in the planning system by facilitating large scale transfers of wealth upwards in society.

Perceptions of the common good in planning

There has been plenty of debate in the academic literature about the nature of the common good or public interest in planning. There is a recognition that the idea is one that is extremely difficult to isolate in practical terms; nevertheless, scholars insist that the idea ‘…remains the pivot around which debates about the nature of planning and its purposes turn’ (Campbell & Marshall, 2002, 163–64). At the point of first principles, these debates have broached political theories of the state and even philosophies of science that inform critiques of rationality, social justice and power. In the planning arena specifically, much of the scholarship has tended to focus on theorising the move from a rational comprehensive planning system in the 1960s and 1970s, to one that is now dominated by deliberative democracy in the form of collaborative planning. In theoretical terms, this debate has been framed by a movement from what are perceived as objective and elitist notions of planning practice and decision-making to ones that are considered (by some) to be ‘inter-subjective’ and non-elitist. Yet despite significant conceptual debate, only a small number of empirical studies have tackled the issue by investigating notions of the common good from the perspective of planning practitioners. What do practitioners understand by the idea of the common good in planning? Do they actively consider it when making planning decisions? Do governance/institutional barriers exist to pursuing the common good in planning? In this paper, these sorts of questions are addressed using the case of Ireland. The methodology consists of a series of semi-structured qualitative interviews with 20 urban planners working across four planning authorities within the Greater Dublin Area, Ireland. The findings show that the most frequently cited definition of the common good is balancing different competing interests and avoiding/minimising the negative effects of development. The results show that practitioner views of the common good are far removed from the lofty ideals of planning theory and reflect the ideological shift of planners within an institution that has been heavily neoliberalised since the 1970s.

Human behaviour recognition in data-scarce domains

This paper presents the novel theory for performing multi-agent activity recognition without requiring large training corpora. The reduced need for data means that robust probabilistic recognition can be performed within domains where annotated datasets are traditionally unavailable. Complex human activities are composed from sequences of underlying primitive activities. We do not assume that the exact temporal ordering of primitives is necessary, so can represent complex activity using an unordered bag. Our three-tier architecture comprises low-level video tracking, event analysis and high-level inference. High-level inference is performed using a new, cascading extension of the Rao–Blackwellised Particle Filter. Simulated annealing is used to identify pairs of agents involved in multi-agent activity. We validate our framework using the benchmarked PETS 2006 video surveillance dataset and our own sequences, and achieve a mean recognition F-Score of 0.82. Our approach achieves a mean improvement of 17% over a Hidden Markov Model baseline.

Self-perceptions of the role of the planner

The role of the planning practitioner has received considerable attention in a diverse range of theoretical and empirical debates within the broad spectrum of planning scholarship from normative debates surrounding the planner's role in society, to more empirical investigations into the skills, attributes, and evolving nature of planning practitioners. Fundamental questions surrounding the role and purpose of planners have also entered into more mainstream discussions as the democratic nature of the planning system has been consistently undermined by allegations of misconduct, corruption, and incompetence. Despite the broad range of literature and debate which centres on the role of the planner, relatively few studies have explored the views of planning practitioners themselves, making it difficult to judge whether the ideas of planning academics are actually shared by those in the field. In this paper we seek to address this particular gap and argue that such insights are critical in determining the extent to which planning practitioners serve to challenge, maintain, or reinforce existing power imbalances in the planning system. The methodology consists of a series of qualitative interviews with twenty local authority planners working throughout the Greater Dublin Area, Ireland. The results suggest that planners' self-perceptions of their role tend to reflect traditional pluralist and managerialist perspectives. More broadly, the results suggest that the role orientations of contemporary planners are being shaped by dominant discourses in current planning ideology — namely, collaborative and participatory approaches

A novel methodology for analysis of large scale interconnected power and gas systems

The European Union continues to exert a large influence on the direction of member states energy policy. The 2020 targets for renewable energy integration have had significant impact on the operation of current power systems, forcing a rapid change from fossil fuel dominated systems to those with high levels of renewable power. Additionally, the overarching aim of an internal energy market throughout Europe has and will continue to place importance on multi-jurisdictional co-operation regarding energy supply. Combining these renewable energy and multi-jurisdictional supply goals results in a complicated multi-vector energy system, where the understanding of interactions between fossil fuels, renewable energy, interconnection and economic power system operation is increasingly important. This paper provides a novel and systematic methodology to fully understand the changing dynamics of interconnected energy systems from a gas and power perspective. A fully realistic unit commitment and economic dispatch model of the 2030 power systems in Great Britain and Ireland, combined with a representative gas transmission energy flow model is developed. The importance of multi-jurisdictional integrated energy system operation in one of the most strategically important renewable energy regions is demonstrated.

Walking the Street: No more motorways for Belfast

This article explores how the spatial qualities and diversity of one of Belfast’s main arteries, North Street/Peter’s Hill, was transformed by urban planning decisions throughout the twentieth century. It looks specifically at how a car dominated planning system contributed to the deterioration of the street fabric. The analysis of historic maps and plans enables to point out how the function and dimensions of the buildings, based on ideas of plot-based urbanism, have contributed to the vibrancy of North Street/Peter’s Hill, and how the more recent transformation of those functions and dimensions damaged these streets. The article acknowledges that streets are made of the social and cultural context in which they exist, while their form and function is instrumental to their embedded public life.